The Genius Wars Read online

  From the shoulders down, he made a pretty convincing bodyguard.

  ‘Hi, Gazo,’ Cadel muttered. He pushed open the front passenger door, clutching his computer bag. ‘Sorry about this.’

  ‘Nuffink to be sorry for,’ was Gazo’s generous response. ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘You’ve got my number, haven’t you?’ Saul asked him. ‘And the campus security details?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘If you’re worried about anything, don’t hold back. Don’t think, “I wouldn’t want to bother him for no reason.” Just call.’

  ‘Okay.’ Gazo inclined his head solemnly. ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘I’ll try to be home by six,’ Saul concluded, raising his voice as Cadel’s door slammed shut. ‘You got enough money, Cadel?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Though he didn’t want to appear ungracious, Cadel couldn’t help being a little brusque. He wished that Saul wouldn’t fuss so much in the presence of someone like Gazo – who, at twenty-one, was already leading a completely grown-up life, with his own job, flat and car. The car might be a bomb, and the flat might be tiny, but they were still enviable accomplishments.

  Cadel, in contrast, was living the sheltered existence of a suburban teenager, receiving handouts and obeying curfews. And although he enjoyed being an ordinary kid, he didn’t necessarily want to publicise the fact. It made him look like a wimp.

  ‘Bye, Saul,’ he said, moving towards the kerb. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.’ Not until he was well clear of Saul’s car did it head off, gathering speed; Cadel watched its receding number plate for a few seconds, then cleared his throat.

  ‘I doubt there’ll be any problems,’ he assured his friend. ‘If Prosper was anywhere near Sydney, he wouldn’t be trying to pretend he was here.’

  ‘Yeah. I know. That’s what your dad was saying.’ Gazo scratched his neck. ‘Still an’ all, it’s best to be on the safe side.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ After a moment’s hesitation, Cadel added, ‘Sonja and Judith want to meet me at Coffee on Campus before my lecture starts. Is that okay with you?’

  ‘Course it is.’ Gazo’s smile revealed jagged clumps of chipped, brownish teeth. His early life in England had been one of homelessness and deprivation; to escape it, he had agreed to enrol at the Axis Institute – where his disabling stench had been regarded as a blessing, rather than a curse. ‘Why wouldn’t it be okay?’ he asked. ‘We musta done it a million times before.’

  ‘Yeah, well … it’s different, now. There are security issues.’

  ‘Are there?’ Gazo stared at Cadel in astonishment. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  Not for the first time, Cadel had the sense that he and Gazo were trying to communicate through a very thick glass wall.

  ‘Gazo, you’re on bodyguard duty.’ Cadel glanced around to check for eavesdroppers. But the footpath was empty in both directions, as far as the eye could see. ‘Wherever we go there’ll be security issues. It’s part of the job.’

  ‘Oh! Right.’ Gazo’s tone was apologetic. ‘I fought you was worried about that cafe, for some reason.’

  ‘No. Not especially.’ Shouldering his computer bag, Cadel headed down the brick-paved route to building K17. This particular road was lined with spindly saplings, parked cars and clusters of garbage bins; Cadel found himself falling back into his old habits, scanning every face and window and potential hiding place that he passed. With a sinking sense of despair, he realised that he was beginning to behave as if he were still at the Axis Institute. As if he constantly needed to watch for hidden threats.

  No, he thought. Forget it. I’m not going to do this. Not again. And he made a huge effort to switch off his antennae, deliberately focusing his entire attention on the spruced-up figure beside him.

  ‘Saul told me you were taking a week off,’ he said to Gazo, who nodded.

  ‘Yeah. That’s right.’

  ‘Is he paying you?’ Cadel wanted to know.

  Gazo gave a snort. ‘Nah,’ he scoffed, as if the question were utterly ludicrous. ‘Doesn’t afta, does he? I still get me ’oliday pay.’

  ‘But it won’t be much fun. Spending a whole week as my babysitter.’ Cadel shook his head, trying to shake off the guilty feeling that troubled him like an importunate blowfly. ‘This doesn’t seem right,’ he went on. ‘You’re giving up your holiday for nothing. You should ask him if there’s some kind of police fund that he can dip into, for a little extra cash. There’s bound to be.’

  Gazo laughed.

  ‘I mean it,’ Cadel insisted. ‘Informants get paid. Why not you?’

  ‘Because I don’t wanna get paid.’ Gazo flashed him a crooked half-smile.’ Remember back at the Institute? I wanted to graduate as some kinda stink-bomb superhero, and spend the resta me life taking care of people. Remember that?’

  ‘Yes. I remember.’

  ‘You fought I was pretty dumb, eh?’ As Cadel flushed, Gazo’s smile widened into a battered-looking grin. ‘Well, I was dumb. Back then. But now I’m getting a chance to do what I always wanted to do. I’m gunna use me special powers to take care of someone. What could be more fun than that?’

  Cadel grunted. It made him squirm when he cast his mind back, and reflected on his former, dismissive attitude towards Gazo. Though Gazo wasn’t terrifically bright, he certainly wasn’t a negligible person. Cadel had come to realise that there were all kinds of qualities just as valuable as intelligence – despite what he might have been taught in the past.

  ‘Maybe you should start a security business,’ he suggested. ‘For celebrities and politicians.’

  ‘No, fanks.’ Seeing Cadel raise his eyebrows, Gazo elaborated. ‘I’d end up all over the papers. “Mr Stinky”, they’d call me. I’d never be able to pull any birds.’

  By now they had reached John Lions Park, which was completely unoccupied; Cadel squinted across a well-worn patch of grass towards Coffee on Campus. There was very little to indicate that even a modest eatery lurked within the Computer Science complex – just a small sign suspended over a pair of glass doors. And when Cadel approached this sign, he realised that the cafe was shut.

  ‘Oh, God,’ he groaned, stopping in his tracks. ‘That’s right. They’re renovating. I forgot.’

  ‘So did I,’ Gazo admitted. ‘But you can still phone ’er, can’t you?’

  ‘Judith, you mean?’

  ‘Oi! Hello!’ A high-pitched hail made them both turn their heads in unison, as if their jaws were being tugged by invisible strings. A few metres to their right, Judith Bashford had emerged from the main entrance of K17. Beyond her, a wall of windows, sheathed in steel mesh, bore the words: Bioinformatics, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Software Engineering. Sonja was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘You’re early,’ Judith announced. She was wearing one of her many-layered, brightly coloured ethnic outfits, complete with leather moccasins and beaten-silver bracelets. ‘We’re in here.’

  ‘The cafe’s shut,’ said Gazo, who had never been one to shy away from stating the obvious. Judith, however, didn’t roll her eyes or pull a face, as Hamish might have done. Instead she shrugged, as if resigned to life’s numerous disappointments.

  ‘Someone did tell me, but I forgot,’ said Cadel, moving past her into K17. On the threshold he was confronted by yet more signage – a white-lettered notice warning him that the area was protected by CCTV cameras – and this made him pause, for an instant. ‘Why did you come in here?’ he asked.

  ‘Because of the elevators,’ Judith replied. She then followed him into the building, with Gazo close on her heels; together they all squeaked across a glossy black floor towards something called the Student Office. Cadel couldn’t help glancing up at the two security cameras they passed on their way. One was trained directly on the front door, like a sniper’s gun. The other was positioned around the corner, in a lobby to the right of the main entrance.

  It was here that they found Sonja Pirovic. She was sitting opposite a bank of elevators, bu
t she wasn’t looking at them. Her gaze was fixed on a wall-mounted ‘HELP’ button, which had presumably been installed as some sort of security measure.

  Cadel knew exactly what she was thinking.

  ‘What’s the point of a help button if you can’t even push it?’ he observed.

  The sound of his voice triggered an immediate reaction. Sonja’s wheelchair spun around, and her whole face lit up.

  ‘I-forgot-about-the-cafe,’ she said.

  ‘So did I. Sorry.’ After a moment’s awkward silence, he jerked his chin at the elevators. ‘I thought we were going to be running trials on the weekend?’

  ‘Just-checking-them-out,’ was her synthesised response. Cadel sensed that she was waiting for something – reassurance, perhaps. She was probably worried about Prosper English.

  But he couldn’t talk about Prosper just yet. Not in such a public place, while the cameras were running.

  So he tried a more subtle approach.

  ‘I wonder what would happen if I asked for help with my homework?’ he remarked, endeavouring to calm her with his breezy, careless tone. He strolled towards the button, which was located right at the top of a very steep staircase. ‘I wonder if an overdue assignment would count as an emergency?’

  Smiling, he glanced over his shoulder – just as Sonja’s wheelchair lurched forward. He didn’t have time to speak. He barely had time to move. While she hurtled towards him, her face contorted with shock, he stood frozen. Confounded. He literally couldn’t believe his eyes.

  For a split second, he found himself trying to calculate the wheelchair’s impressive rate of acceleration.

  ‘No!’ screamed Judith.

  This scream was like a trumpet blast. It galvanised him. Snapping out of his daze, he threw himself to one side. Then he slipped, stumbled, and fell.

  He was still on the ground when Sonja’s wheelchair whizzed past him, straight down the stairs.

  SIX

  Cadel couldn’t eat.

  He sat staring at the slab of lasagna in front of him: at the thick red sauce and glistening layers of pasta. Red and white. Blood and bone.

  He felt nauseous.

  ‘Just a little bit,’ Fiona urged. She was sitting across the table, picking at a caesar salad. ‘You need to get something into you, sweetie. It’s going to be a long night.’

  Cadel nodded. Then he picked up his fork. Perhaps if I don’t look at it while I’m eating it, he decided, letting his gaze drift as he transferred a sloppy fragment of lasagna from the plate to his mouth. After all, there were plenty of other things to look at. The enormous glass mural on the wall, for instance. The array of cakes under glass. Even the other diners, some of whom were laughing in a fashion that Cadel found abrasive.

  He realised that the noisy customers were probably medical staff, while the people who chewed stoically through their meals, grim and silent, were people like him – people whose loved ones were being treated at Sydney Children’s Hospital.

  Why else would they be having dinner in the hospital cafe?

  ‘Here he is,’ said Gazo, who was occupying the seat next to Fiona’s. Glancing around, Cadel spotted Saul Greeniaus descending a nearby staircase. The detective had taken off his jacket and tie; his expression was shuttered and his feet were dragging. Behind him, through a wall of windows, other windows were visible as golden squares in a sea of darkness.

  When his eyes met Cadel’s, he gave a thumbs-up signal.

  ‘She must be all right,’ Gazo murmured. Cadel didn’t say anything; the lump in his throat was far too big.

  Fiona reached over to squeeze his hand.

  ‘She’s in Recovery,’ Saul announced, upon arriving at their table. He dropped into the chair beside Cadel’s. ‘She’ll be there for a little while, and then they’ll be moving her to the Surgical High Dependency Unit for a couple of days. Apparently they’ve done an MRI scan, because of the head injury, and the results won’t be back for another twenty-four to forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Where’s Judith?’ Fiona interrupted, her voice tight with anxiety.

  ‘She’s coming.’ Saul produced a ragged little smile. ‘She tried to bull her way into Recovery, but no one’s allowed in there. Not even relatives. I told her she should grab a bite to eat while she’s waiting.’ He nodded at the bowl of chips that had been left in the centre of the table. ‘Speaking of which …’

  ‘Yeah. Go ahead.’ Gazo pushed the bowl towards him. ‘Help yourself.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Saul reached for a handful of chips. He ate them like someone interested only in refuelling, his jaw working mechanically while his shadowy gaze lingered on Cadel.

  Fiona said, ‘So how did the surgery go?’

  ‘It went okay.’ Though he was talking to his wife, Saul didn’t look at her. He continued to study Cadel’s face. ‘I was just speaking to the surgeon, and she seemed pretty happy. No nasty surprises, she said. It could have been a lot worse.’

  Cadel swallowed. ‘But – but the head injury …’ he stammered, before his breath failed him.

  Saul laid a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘They don’t think it’s anything really bad,’ the detective avowed. ‘Head wounds always bleed a lot. The MRI is standard procedure – just to be on the safe side. They’re more concerned about her broken leg.’

  ‘Can they fix that up?’ Gazo queried, and Cadel had to shut his eyes for a moment. He would never, ever forget the sight that had greeted him at the bottom of those stairs in K17. One look at the strange angle of Sonja’s leg had made him sick to the stomach; he’d been retching in a corner when the paramedics had arrived, only minutes after Sonja’s fall. He couldn’t remember much else about the scene: just her torn skin, her damaged leg, and her bloody face. He couldn’t even remember what he’d done to help, though he was sure he hadn’t done much. Shock had rendered him useless. It was Gazo who had phoned for an ambulance, and Gazo who had talked to the paramedics – while Judith had stamped around, wringing her hands and threatening to sue the university for constructing such a dangerous flight of stairs.

  Luckily, the campus and the hospital were right next door to each other. Sonja’s trip to the Emergency Department had therefore been mercifully quick, involving little more than a couple of left-hand turns. By the time Gazo had found a parking place near the hospital’s main entrance, Sonja and Judith were already somewhere inside.

  After that, it had just been a matter of waiting.

  ‘Her leg’s fine, now,’ Saul declared. ‘That’s what the surgery was for. She’s in a splint at the moment, but they’ll put a cast on her when the swelling’s gone down a bit.’

  ‘How …?’ Cadel began, before trailing off. He didn’t know how to phrase his next question. How would Sonja’s bone ever heal, if she couldn’t stop jerking around?

  Saul’s grip on him tightened.

  ‘You don’t have to worry,’ the detective insisted. ‘It’s a broken leg, that’s all. The people here are used to dealing with broken legs.’

  ‘But she has cerebral palsy!’ Cadel blurted out. At which point Fiona seemed to grasp what was troubling him.

  ‘They’ll be able to immobilise her somehow,’ she said. ‘I guarantee, Sonja’s not the first person with cerebral palsy who’s ever broken a bone.’

  ‘Here’s Judith.’ Saul nodded towards the staircase. ‘She’ll have a better idea of what’s going on.’

  Judith didn’t look well, even from a distance. Her skin was mottled with patches of red and grey. There were smears of dried blood on her embroidered jacket. She moved heavily, crossing the room and lowering herself into a chair as if her knees were about to collapse beneath the weight of her ample form.

  After a moment’s silence, Gazo cleared his throat.

  ‘So how’s Sonya?’ he inquired. ‘Is she awake yet?’

  ‘No.’ Judith’s retort was crisp, to say the least. It made Saul frown.

  ‘Does she know what happened?’ said Fiona.

 
‘Oh, I think we all know that.’ Judith’s scowl was aimed directly at Cadel. ‘I think we all know what happened.’

  Cadel’s heart skipped a beat.

  ‘It was Cadel’s little project,’ Judith went on, causing the detective’s frown to deepen.

  ‘No!’ cried Cadel. ‘It wasn’t!’

  ‘What project?’ Saul asked him. ‘What are you talking about?’

  But Cadel couldn’t answer.

  ‘He’s been fiddling with her wheelchair,’ Judith finally volunteered. ‘He must have screwed up the command signals.’

  ‘I did not!’ Cadel could only manage a strangled croak. ‘Do you think I’m stupid? I didn’t do any such thing!’

  ‘That wheelchair was out of control!’

  ‘I know,’ Cadel said hoarsely. ‘I was there, remember? I saw what happened.’

  ‘Cadel.’ Saul’s tone, though calm, was edged with steel. ‘What’s all this about a project? What did you do to Sonja’s wheelchair?’

  ‘Nothing! I didn’t touch her wheelchair! All I did was add a few commands to the protocol!’ As Cadel described his elevator hack, Saul’s expression grew darker and darker. ‘I’ve thought about this!’ Cadel finished. ‘Do you think it didn’t cross my mind straight away? But it can’t have been me!’

  ‘No one else has been messing with her wheelchair,’ Judith pointed out. She spoke so harshly that Fiona winced.

  Cadel’s reply was just as harsh.

  ‘How do you know?’ he spat. ‘You’re not a hacker!’

  ‘Shh.’ Fiona tried to intervene. ‘No one’s blaming anyone –’

  ‘There was a CCTV camera right there! On the ceiling!’ Cadel spluttered. He swung around to plead with Saul. ‘I saw the whole thing. It wasn’t a malfunction. She came straight at me. She had to swerve –’

  ‘Wait a minute.’ The detective held up his hand. ‘What are you trying to say? That this was some kind of attack?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Hearing Judith snort, Cadel hastened to defend himself. ‘There’s a wireless interface between Sonja’s neckband and her wheelchair computer,’ he said fiercely. ‘What’s to stop someone from hacking into that, and changing the command protocols?’